In today's public safety environment, various municipalities and public agencies are searching for new ways to consolidate their operations and improve efficiency. These improvements must be accomplished without compromising the quality of service provided to the public. Therefore, the communications systems which are utilized by these entities must be very flexible, even when numerous users are contending for resources within the system.
During busy periods, it often becomes difficult for a dispatch console operator to quickly and efficiently manage activity on numerous pre-designated communications channels. Moreover, several dispatch consoles currently support a "channel assignment" concept requiring a distinct representation (i.e. radio panel, channel control module, etc.) for each individual channel. Dispatchers that are required to manage activity on more than one channel must assign the necessary channels, each with their own distinct representation.
With a multitude of individual channel representations, confusion may subsequently arise as to the source of call activity. This is especially true if the dispatcher is not watching the call indicators at all times; which often tends to be the case since many dispatchers focus their attention on computer based dispatching aids.
One way to address this problem is to allow the dispatcher to consolidate their assigned channels by collapsing several distinct channels into a single operational entity. A single entity representing multiple channel resources is referred to as a Composite Channel. All members of a composite channel are managed from a single channel representation and all are patched together. The composite channel enables the operator to focus their attention on a single operational entity; hence, the risk of confusion is reduced and efficiency is improved.
In a multi-operator dispatch environment, with Composite Channel and traditional Patch capabilities, it is reasonable to expect that individual channels will need to be placed into more than one patch group to satisfy the needs of all operators. For example, individual operators may wish to create composite channels that have one or more channels in common. Another example would be the establishment of a patch that involves one or more composite channels. Scenarios such as these lead to contention among operators for individual channel resources.
Existing dispatch systems provide limited patch capabilities to ensure that channel resource contention does not adversely affect system operation. For example, a dispatcher or operator is typically not permitted to place a communications channel into a patch if it is already involved in another patch. Were this to be allowed, such an "overlap" condition between the respective patches would result in one large patch consisting of all channels involved in each of the overlapping patches. This condition would bring many operational difficulties to both the communications system and the dispatcher. When each distinct patch is established, it is neither the desire nor the intent of the dispatcher to create a patch involving channels other than those that have been explicitly designated.
The benefits of consolidation previously described cannot be realized if individual channels can be involved in only one patch at a time. Therefore, the need exists for a method which can manage system audio connections by allowing a channel to be involved in multiple patches, established at different dispatch positions, while preventing interaction between channels which are not part of the same radio patch. Thus, a method is needed to manage dispatcher/radio channel interactions in such a way that the need to restrict access to radio patch capabilities is eliminated. Eliminating these restrictions while maintaining an orderly dispatch environment will improve the overall flexibility of the dispatch system. Additionally, a composite channel assignment method is needed which is an extension of the traditional channel assignment concept and can address the above requirements allowing a single point of control.